How to Make the Mind Matter in Nigeria

Have you seen this little piece of mine? I thought you might like it. It's about creating a sound intellectual culture in Nigeria. No society ever thrives without having this fundamental aspect of human civilization. If you are rich - and God knows I pray that you are - you might consider sponsoring one of the ideas expressed in that piece. Or call your rich friend and tell him/her about it.
Okay, here is the article.
Here is the correct LINK

We don’t want Zimbabweans anymore

“We don’t want Zimbabweans anymore,” said Roy Buys, as he mourned with his old friends Ronie and Stephaina Hamilton, parents of the young man whose murder set off the violence. “They kill our brothers, rape our sisters, break into our homes and take our jobs.”
Does this sound familiar to you? It's heartbreaking. Nuff Said.

10,000 Albinos In Hiding After Killings In East Africa

I don't usually cry when I read about ugly incidents in the news, but this one got me real bad. Believe it or not, I shed tears. The reason is that I know what it means to be the unwanted one, what it means to be despised by others. More devastatingly, for the African soul, I know that belief in witchery and all forms of dark-souled superstition is still rife in many corners of Africa. Who would have believed that the killing of albinos is generally tolerated much more believing that their body parts have some healing power? But in Igboland, some occultists believe that some people's body parts have some potency. Talk of the urgent need of enlightenment.
Anyway, this piece is worth reading. Here you go!

The Trial of Robert Mugabe -A review by Kenneth Kudakwashe Nyoka

Here is a powerful review of my book, The Trial of Robert Mugabe, by a Zimbabwean civil rights activist.Kenneth Kudakwashe Nyoka. He is a former magistrate and prosecutor in Zimbabwe.
He is on: kknyoka@yahoo.co.uk




ENJOY!

A Harrowing Experience In Cotonou

Have you read this piece? It is great, it is well-written, sad, yet a microcosm of our great country, Nigeria. Cheers for those who believe that the best way to save a country is to re-brand it.
ENJOY

Saving our brothers

This one got me thinking. Do you remember sometime in 1985 (or thereabout) when Nigerians threw loaves of bread to an Ethiopian soccer team in Lagos in mockery? It was described as a national shame. This essay somehow reminded me of the time.
Why do Western charities always step up to help Africans in difficulty while rich African countries and individuals appear largely unconcerned? This is just a question and not a condemnation. Read this essay and, if you like, help me ask the question aloud. ENJOY.

Africa's elite and the Western media

Have you seen this little piece of mine, titled, "Africa's elite and the Western media"? Thanks to the Pambazuka guys. I think they are doing a nice job out there.
My main argument is that the African elite should discard the useless job of deodorizing the African image in the West. It is a waste of our talents. Rather, we should ask questions that are aimed at bettering the living conditions in our different native countries. If the people in my village, town or country are able to have a decent life, why should they bother about what the Europeans think about them. Who cares anyway.
Supply my people with constant electric, good roads, water, health care, security etc. They will surely take care of the rest.
Well, see the article in its entirety. ENJOY!

African churches denounce children as ‘witches’

Have you read this? Disturbing, very disturbing. Have African intellectuals done enough job at enlightening their people?
Read and pray for Africa if you believe in prayers. Good luck

Prime Minister in Zimbabwe Boycotts Unity Government

Three weeks ago, I gave two interviews to international radio stations on the state of Zimbabwe. In one of the interviews I expressed the hope that Zimbabwe might be on the path to recovery; Morgan Tsvangirai, I said, should be given time to begin to redress the wrongs of the past three decades of Mugabe's reign of darkness. I earnestly prayed that my dear friends in Zimbabwe would finally have a taste of better life. Boy, oh, boy, how mistaken was I, to begin to hope. Wasn't I?
I need not tell you that I was depressed by this New York Times News.

By the way, have you read my novel, The Trial of Robert Mugabe? Enjoy

Child rape survivor saves 'virgin myth' victims

Have you read this? It breaks my heart. The ignorance of my people makes me want to puke. And what of the heart's wretchedness? And I? Where is my heart in all of this?
This is the exact question I asked myself after reading this. By the way, I took the question from J.M. Coetzee's book, Age of Iron.

Any way, please take time to read this.

How a Malawian teenager harnessed the power of the wind.

If this does not fit the definition of Genius, then tell me what does. This is a Malawian school drop out who put his mind to work and achieved what most Nigerian engineering professors would never think of in seven lifetimes.
Here is a beautiful report on the emerging African intellectual leadership:

"William Kamkwamba’s parents couldn’t afford the $80 yearly tuition for their son’s school. The boy sneaked into the classroom anyway, dodging administrators for a few weeks until they caught him. Still emaciated from the recent deadly famine that had killed friends and neighbors, he went back to work on his family’s corn and tobacco farm in rural Malawi, Africa. " READ ON PLEASE.

S(H)IBBOLETH: Noisome pestilence

Have you read Obododimma Oha's piece on religious zealotry in Nigeria? Please take a read. It is a great piece. I'm sure you'll ENJOY it.

In a Guinea Seized by Violence, Women as Prey

This is how not to write about Africa. Truly?
I thought it should be so: This is how Africa should not behave.

Read and Cry, weep, do whatever you think is better, for Africa.

Nneka - 'My mission is to give people hope'

This is an interesting essay on the musician to whose songs I've posted links here on this blog. I am talking of Nneka. She is beautiful, she is smart; her songs are just as close to you as your heartbeats. She is destined for greatness. okay, here is a teaser:

"It's been four years since Nneka Egbuna emerged from Germany as the gung-ho Nigerian rapper/singer/songwriter with a socio-political bone to pick, and yet she's still indifferent to fame. "I'm just happy that more than one person listens to me," shrugs the 27-year-old when asked if she has the desire to break the US now that she's been recognised by the Mobos as the Best African Act, and Channel O, the premier African music network based in South Africa. "It's not about being popular. It's about the love of doing the music. It's about giving people hope; it's not about me, it's not about Nneka herself, it's about having a voice and it's about having a message behind the voice."
ENJOY the rest of the piece. And remember! She's great.
And by the way, take a listen to one of her songs.

Uwem Akpan's Say You Are One of Them, Oprah's Pick

For those who have not yet heard it, it is true. For those who have already read about in in one of the many news media outlets out there, I think that this is huge, really huge. It is huge not only because is assures that Akpan becomes an instant millionaire (well, he's a Jesuit priest), it is so because African literature has finally arrived in America. With Chimamanda, Helon Habila, Chris Abani and many others already out there, this Akpanic big bang simply burns the arrival of African literature into American consciousness. Now, let's hope that literary agents and editors will begin to consider our manuscripts seriously.
Be well, and now, good luck in your writing.

Welcome Back!

I duly apologize for not having posted anything, yes, anything, on this blog for more than three months. I, too, hate dormant blogs. The reason for my silence is not really because I had nothing to say, or that nothing was taking place in the world out there. There are, indeed a lot things happening. And I had and still have quite a lot to say. I traveled; I went to see my Mama in Nigeria. Since Nigeria is immersed in the good job of name re-branding, I really don't want to say anything that would vitiate that effort.
The truth, however, is that the moment I landed in Nigeria, I began to lose contact with the world. Most things I have come to regard as obvious, yes, most things I no longer took notice of, suddenly became luxury goods. Take a simple case of turning lights on and off, turning taps (or faucets) on, turning on your computer, googling. All these appeared to have taken place in my past life.
I spent the first night in my brother's apartment in Lagos. He, like many Nigerians, had a standby generator. Actually it shouldn’t be called standby, for it never stood by, it hummed all the time. Since almost all the apartments had "stay-on" generators, the house literally shook with noise. We shouted the whole time in an attempt to make ourselves heard.
I spent four days in Lagos, where I welcomed myself back to Nigeria. Then I traveled to my village where I spent weeks with my Mama. There I was effectively cut off from the rest of the world. Thanks to my world receiver, I was able to hear Dora Akunyilu re-branding Nigeria, telling the world that all was well with Nigeria.

But I'm back. I’m now in my apartment. The sun is shining. I am typing these words. Whichever word I’m not sure about, I right-click on it, then click on “Look up.” It takes me to an on-line dictionary. Goodness. I am here! I feel like crying. I know it might sound naïve, but sometimes I think I don’t deserve this luxury. The luxury of having constant power supply, running water, day and night internet connection. A part of my soul is still in my village, wrapped in wishes. How I wish that village could have water, electric and telephone connections. I could still stay with my mother and be connected with the larger world. That is what I wish the good people of Nigeria, the beautiful, and talented people I left behind in my village.

And by the way, have you heard that my novel, The Trial of Robert Mugabe, is coming out on September 15? Check it out on AMAZON.

Stay tuned.

Fiction faction: Calabash goulash

I love this prose poem. What tickles my mind is the unresolved and unresolvable nature of the human mind. The speaker is so attacked to his broken lamp that he calls it a perfect lamp. it is sound philosophy.
ENJOY.

Aid Ironies: A Response to Jeffrey Sachs

I love this article. It's hot. That's exactly what the African mind, spirit or whatever you call the core of one's being, needs. Boy, this Dambisa Moyo. She rocks.
Okay, read the beautiful article that appeals to me not only because it is aesthetically crafted, but, indeed, particularly because it is logical. Quite unlike the one she is rebutting - her former professor, Jeffrey Sach's largely ad hominem essay.
ENJOY.

Dora’s metamorphosis

I love this reflection, a creative non-fiction. For those of us who loved what Dora Akunyili did to protect Nigeria from the flood of fake drugs; those of us who were ready to canonize her a saint, but who have been lately shocked by her job as Nigeria's minister of information, this write-up might help.
ENJOY!

Nollywood, Nolly what?

In a deep, soul-searching essay, Eddie Iroh provides an analysis of Nigerian home-video production, otherwise known as Nigerian film industry, or Nollywood. The problem with Nollywood, says Eddie Iroh, is not quit different from that of Nigeria: the love of mediocrity, living in illusion of grandeur because of the failure to compare oneself with the best in the world; the refusal to aim for excellence.
I so love this essay that I posting a link in every blog that I have a control over.
So, friends, enjoy!

The Trial of Robert Mugabe

How do you like this? This is what I've been working on all this while. It'll be published by Okri Books in September. Please stay tuned.

Wole Soyinka on how he came to write Death and the King's Horseman

I love Soyinka for the moral insights his writings provide. What I mean by moral is this: the ability to look inwards and ask oneself questions about the direction of one's life. Am I right or wrong? How would I react if I observe another person repeat my action?
A part of his recent interview reminds me of this aspect of him I have always loved in his works: "the tendency - in the theatre, the cinema and the novel - was to present everything that dealt with things outside western culture as being understandable only as a 'clash of cultures'. This covered everything, and it encouraged analytical laziness."
Most students of African intellectual history, indeed, most African scholars are still trapped in the old mistake of seeing African cultures and reality only as essentially opposed to, or as constantly under attack, from the West. In that way, they fail to interrogate the conceptual frameworks of these cultures and their moral assumptions. Well, friends, read Soyinka and be happy that Africa has a true philosopher. HERE you go.

The story of Nigeria's 'untouchables'

God, I can't believe it's been more than three weeks since I had my last post here. I hate giving excuses, but, well, just a simple one could soothe my little writer's conscience. Reason: grading students' papers. I haven't had time to invest much thought on extra-curricular writings that meet my set goals in this forum.
Well, friends, I stumbled upon this article on BBC website. It’s about the Osu caste system in Igboland. I am reminded of my failed attempt to address this issue in one my many novel manuscripts languishing under my bed. Ach, these publishers! If only they would care to read at least one of them.
Sorry, to bother you with whining. See the article.

Lessons from Ghana’s 2008 elections - Mawuli Dake

This is good news and a good read from Pambazuka.

In this exceptionally good essay, Mawuli Dakel celebrates the recent Ghanaian election and comes to this conclusion, among others: "Money can no longer buy votes for victory ... candidates can no longer substitute money for concrete ideas, substantive messages or genuine appeal to voters as they have in the past."

This is great. I can only hope that other African nations, including my dear country, Nigeria, would take a leaf from Ghana.
Here's the whole essay.

Raped and killed for being a lesbian: South Africa ignores 'corrective' attacks

This is a follow up on my earlier post. It a sad story about the macho behavior of South African men. It is shocking to me personally that this macho trait is widespread in Nigeria, my country. It raises many questions.

Enjoy the original article. Sorry for saying enjoy, for there's nothing to enjoy here. Well, read and reflect.

South African women fall victim to 'corrective rape'

I just chanced on this short Guardian YouTube video and that set off this thought in my mind.

It's been a while since I read J.M. Cotzee's novel, Disgrace. I remember having an argument with a Nigerian colleague of mine, who literally took offense with me that I was so naive to believe that Coetzee wasn't engaging in the usual Western stereotypical representation of the African in their narratives. Why was it that the only role the black man played in that novel was to rape a white woman, the daughter of David Lurie? he asked.
Well, the truth is that rape is not an African word and it wasn't invented for the African. Another fact is that African men do rape, and if blacks raped a white woman in the post Apartheid South Africa there are many ways to understand it, which of course, does not limit its horror. Every rape is a horrendous act. It could be seen as some cowardly black men engaging in a vengeful act, trying to get back on the white man for the evils of apartheid. It could also be that some black men just happened to chance on some white women and decided to rape.
There is no doubt that the years of oppression and apartheid in South Africa left their imprint on the minds of average South African men, just like the years of military oppression did to the average Nigerian. People take laws into their hands. There is perhaps an internalization of the mechanism of oppression, which, unfortunately, expresses itself in various forms of violence directed against the weaker ones in society. In Nigeria, people turn against one another, shout at one another, exert all imaginable forms of violence on each other. In South Africa, violence appears to become a second nature to the segments of society that sees itself as the emasculated victims of the historical injustice of apartheid: men.
The degree to which South African men rape South African women is alarming. In most cases the rape victims are the minorities of the minorities, lesbians.

Watching these men justify the use of rape as a corrective measure to what they understood as a lifestyle gives me the chills. How they trumpet their ignorance! How they take pride in being masters of their 'hood. How they remind me of the not distant past when nearly ever white man in South Africa saw himself as the Lord of the universe. Ach, how shallow we humans can be, how like animals we kill for meat.

Zimbabwe PM's wife dies in crash

I hate to see my blog carry largely bad news, but it appears I have to comment on this. The new hope in Zimbabwean murky situation, the proverbial shimmer of light a the end of the tunnel, Morgan Tsvangirai, was reported to have had an accident a few hours ago. He is said to be in a relatively good condition, but his wife died instantly.
Too many members of the opposition party, MDC, have lost their lives to car crashes. Far too many. And Mugabe, the prince of African liberation movement, Mugabe the only one to save Zimbabwe, stands by and watches these people die. I wonder what contemporary African intellectuals have to say about this conundrum; I wonder whether we wouldn't one day look back at the lives of our esteemed freedom fighters and realize how they had led us to our doom.
See the report.

Hope amid Zimbabwe's harsh reality

I tend to see myself as a realist; I call a spade a spade. I have, however, come to realize that it doesn't hurt to see life from the slightest wink of optimism there is. This is what I, in concert with my Zimbabwean friends, have resigned to do in the past months, indeed, years. You can't imagine how happy I was to read this headline from BBC website. "Hope amid Zimbabwe's harsh reality." Yes, indeed, Tsvangirai's ascendancy to power, however limited, should be see as a sign of hope.
To those who are about to lose their grip on the life-saving log of wood they chanced upon in that great pond I say, hang on, please. Hang on, tempus omnia vincit. Time conquers everything. That sounds idiotic, I know. But look, Mugabe is 85 years old. 85! Good Lord. Well, there will surely be another election soon. That's all I can say.
Oh, did I give a link to the original article? Here it is, friends. ENJOY

Lessons of Zimbabwe - A Response

Lessons of Zimbabwe
Courtesy of LRB

From Timothy Scarnecchia, Jocelyn Alexander and 33 others

For a number of scholars, Mahmood Mamdani’s ‘Lessons of Zimbabwe’ requires a further response, given Mamdani’s stature as a scholar and public intellectual (LRB, 4 December 2008). Some aspects of his argument are uncontroversial: there was a real demand for land redistribution – even the World Bank was calling for it in the late 1990s as the best way forward in Zimbabwe – and some of the Western powers’ original pronouncements and actions were hypocritical. There is a real danger, however, in simplifying the lessons of Zimbabwe. It isn’t just a matter of stark ethnic dichotomies, the urban-rural divide, or the part played by ‘the West’.

One of the more difficult tasks for scholars working on Zimbabwe is to convince peers working on other areas of Africa to look more deeply at the crisis and not to be fooled by Mugabe’s rhetoric of imperialist victimisation. Mamdani has, unfortunately, fallen in with this rhetoric by characterising Zimbabwean history and politics as fundamentally a battle between what he sees as an urban-based opposition, supported by the West, and a peasant-based ruling party besieged by external forces. This flight of fantasy portrays Mugabe and his Zanu-PF cronies as heroes of a landless peasantry (which is how they see themselves) and the state – backed up by the paramilitary violence of war veterans and others – as the vanguard of a peasant revolution. We suggest that Mamdani acquaint himself with the large body of Zimbabwean scholarship, which is easily available, rather than selectively using the arguments of scholars such as Sam Moyo and Paris Yeros on land reform, and Gideon Gono, Mugabe’s Reserve Bank governor, as his source on sanctions. Citing Gono is rather like using Milton Obote’s writings as a source for conditions in Uganda in the 1960s and 1970s. A starting point for more informed scholarship is the recent Bulletin of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars, found at http://concerned africascholars.org.

Mamdani’s portrayal of Zimbabwe’s opposition politics is insulting to those who continue to endure so much in their struggle to build a better Zimbabwe. He argues that urban trade unions have always been marginal to the nationalist movement because of their supposed ‘Ndebele leadership’, and that the current opposition follows in this ‘weak’ trade-union tradition as well as being in thrall to Western interests. What he doesn’t mention is the trade unions’ hard-fought battle against repression before and after 1980. There were many challenges to overcome, among which ethnic politics was hardly the most prominent. That leaders such as Morgan Tsvangirai managed to reshape the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) from what had been a pro-Zanu organisation into a viable political opposition by the early 1990s reflects an Africa-wide and Africa-based phenomenon that Mamdani apparently missed. By accepting Zanu-PF’s argument that the MDC is primarily limited to urban areas and is the product of the West, Mamdani’s account loses credibility.

Mamdani has also sugar-coated his portrayal of political violence in Zimbabwe. He fails even to mention that many ‘peasants’ in Shona-speaking Zanu-PF strongholds turned against Mugabe and major Zanu-PF leaders in the March 2008 elections. It was this reversal that sparked a new round of state-sponsored violence against the same Shona peasantry that Mamdani cites as the beneficiaries of Mugabe’s benevolent dictatorship. In addition, during the months preceding the run-off election (April-June 2008), food relief was denied to rural areas, leaving the World Food Programme and other groups to scramble to re-establish supply to the Zimbabwean peasantry Mamdani suggests are at the centre of Zanu-PF’s concern. Repressive legislation and actions by Zanu-PF activists are magically transformed by Mamdani into acts of generosity to outsiders. After noting discrimination against farm workers in gaining access to land on the grounds they or ‘their elders’ came from another country, Mamdani adds that ‘some were given citizenship.’ Yet he omits the fact that just before the 2002 presidential election the Zanu-PF government removed citizenship from many farm workers and other Zimbabweans whose parents or grandparents had non-Zimbabwean citizenship rights. The disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of perceived opposition supporters disappears in Mamdani’s analysis.

Mamdani’s contention that the West, not Mugabe and the Zanu-PF government, is responsible for the current crisis is as dangerous as it is wrong. By selectively citing instances over the past eight years when the West has cancelled donor funding, Mamdani gives the impression that the West has not been involved in sustaining life in Zimbabwe. The reality is that there are whole sections of the Zimbabwean population that the Zanu-PF leadership would rather punish with starvation than allow to support the opposition. ‘We would be better off with only six million people, with our own [ruling party] people who supported the liberation struggle,’ Didymus Mutasa, one of the key insiders in Zanu-PF, said in 2002, when drought again threatened to kill thousands of rural Zimbabweans. ‘We don’t want all these extra people.’ Western food aid has been a lifeline for ‘these extra people’ – when the state has allowed access.

Sanctions cannot excuse the callous disregard for human life Mugabe and his associates have shown, dating back to the Gukurahundi between 1983 and 1986 (which Mamdani glosses over as a brief bout of violence following from the tension between Zanu-PF and the ‘Ndebele unions’ in 1986), or the repeated land seizures which have been going on since the 1980s, the forced removals, violent reprisals, and the withholding of food aid. Furthermore, Mamdani’s suggestion that the fall in direct investment in Zimbabwe is the result of sanctions is dishonest. There are no sanctions against direct investment in Zimbabwe, as shown by Anglo American’s willingness to invest $400 million in Zimbabwe during the summer of 2008 to protect access to platinum mines. There have been large investments from South Africa, India and China, as Mugabe has bartered away the nation’s resources for short-term interests. It is the kleptocracy and violence fostered by Mugabe and Co that has scared off other investors, not sanctions.

At a time when thousands of people in Zimbabwe are threatened by a cholera epidemic – in part at least as a consequence of Zanu-PF’s decision to replace MDC municipal officials with Zanu-PF ‘urban governors’ – and international donors are scrambling to help deal with the collapse of the health sector and widespread hunger, intellectuals such as Mamdani should display more responsibility and less posturing in their attempts to draw meaningful lessons from Zimbabwe.

Jocelyn Alexander, Linacre College, Oxford
Andrea Arrington, University of Arkansas
Michael Bratton, Michigan State University
Bill Derman, Michigan State University
William J. Dewey, The University of Tennessee
Matthew Engelke, London School of Economics
Linda Freeman, Carleton University
Petina Gappah, Zimbabwean writer and lawyer
Kenneth Good, RMIT University Melbourne
David Gordon, Bowdoin College Amanda Hammar, Nordic Africa Institute
David McDermott Hughes, Rutgers University
Diana Jeater, University of the West of England
Tony King, University of the West of England
Bill Kinsey, University of Zimbabwe
Norma Kriger, Cornell University
Todd Leedy, University of Florida
JoAnn McGregor, University College London
Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Showers Mawowa, University of KwaZulu Natal
David Maxwell, Keele University
Donald Mead, Michigan State University
John Metzler, Michigan State University
David Moore, University of Johannesburg
Shylock Muyengwa, University of Florida
Blair Rutherford, Carleton University
John S. Saul, York University
Richard Saunders, York University
Timothy Scarnecchia, Kent State University, Ohio
Anne Schneller, Michigan State University
Marja Spierenburg, Vrije University of Amsterdam
Colin Stoneman, JSAS Editorial Coordinator
Blessing-Miles Tendi, Oxford University
Wendy Urban-Mead, Bard College
Elaine Windrich, Stanford University

The Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature and the Nigerian Love of Exclusion

The Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa, awarded biennially, is, to many, the most prestigious prize of the fiction genre in Africa. Touted as “Africa’s NOBEL prize,” it is supposed to earn the recipient the much treasured recognition among his/her peers globally. The activities constructed around the prize giving ceremony make it an envy of every writer and connoisseur of African culture. This is a prize that, given the name of the patron and targeted excellence, has the potential of becoming one of the ten culturally relevant literary prizes in the world.
Like the Nigerian (NLNG) literature prize, Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature is though not without a genetically debilitating snag. While the Nigerian national prize in literature is open to only Nigerians resident in the country, a condition that has attracted considerable controversy, the Wole Soyinka prize excludes books “that have won any other awards.” This is a major pitfall that will deny the prize the grandeur and global relevance that it deserves.
To understand the contradictory logic inherent in the prize, it is helpful to ponder that it is established to reward excellence, but systematically excludes any book whose excellence has already been recognized by other agencies. What the exclusionary clause suggests, put in a very simple language, runs thus: This is a prize for excellence; if your book is excellent, please do not apply.
It is important to note that I am not particularly against the books that have won the prize (indeed the two books rewarded so far have their individual merits). I am worried by the spirit of exclusion that has accompanied it. It is just difficult to believe that the prize that is awarded to books that haven’t won any prize at all, is, or will ever be, a trailblazer. Nor can it be an ultimate confirmer of the literary value inherent in a work in the manner of Nobel Prize, which it ironically emulates. It will forever be known as the prize for “the best of the rest.”
This being said, it is mind-boggling that a continent that has still a lot of spaces to make up for in excellence, smuggles through the backdoor silly exclusionary clauses that end up making parts of its constituencies feel unwanted.
At the inception of the Nigerian Prize in Literature, (NLNG Prize), in 2004, many Nigerians abroad protested their being excluded from the prize. Some even termed it outright disenfranchisement. To be sure, one of the entry requirements states that Nigerian authors must be “resident in the country.” It goes on to define residency as “minimum of three of the four years covered by the competition” (Website). Given the name of the prize, Nigerian Prize in Literature, it is no surprise that Nigerian writers living abroad, be it in Ghana or Germany, in Canada or Cameroon, feel excluded and reduced to aliens in their homeland. The truth though is that there is an unwarranted anxiety that those who reside outside the country would dominate the prize because they are said to have better opportunity to write and publish. The thought that merely being outside of Nigeria regardless of where one is or what one does already puts one at an advantage is not only empty, it is also unfair.
But the calculated tactic of exclusion in the two major literary awards held in Nigeria is only symptomatic of the moral workings of the culture we inherited from our ancestors whose world was largely characterized by sharp binary oppositions. The world of our ancestors was one guided by a form of “Us” and “Them,” a world where the meaning or the sanctity of “Us” is guaranteed by the mere fact that the other group, the “Them” is excluded. That world, however much we embrace it as part of our heritage, entertained no grey area, no in-betweens, no threshold. That, of course, means that reality is already molded, and cannot be negotiated. There cannot be discussions and compromises; you either accept what is given or you just walk away. Any society that operates in this way has very little chance for growth from within. This is because exclusions cement its realities into unshakable essences. Perhaps a few examples could help us understand my thinking here.
Growing up in my village a relatively weak boy, I was made to feel important when I was finally initiated into my village’s masquerade cult. From that point on I lived with the belief that I was superior to some people: women; I was superior to my mother and my sisters and all those girls who might have laughed at me as a weakling. I was superior to women because they have been excluded from something special, from the cult of men.
As a son of the soil of my village, (a few Kilometers from the city) I was also made to feel superior because I knew that a particular group of people we called foreigners (never mind that most of them had been living there before I was born) was excluded from certain claims to the reality of that part of the world. These people were not sons of the soil; they couldn’t lay claims to any aspect of our reality. In short, they were inferior. Their putative inferiority made me superior. It should surprise no one to know that this is an essential pillar of every racist, feudal and oppressive society. Their logic is that of exclusion. Just exclude and feel comfortable with the rest. Wasn’t this what actually brought about the falling apart of the Umuofia community?
Our twenty-first Nigerian society is also a direct progeny of military culture whose mentality is branded by exclusions. Nigeria experienced more than thirty years of brutal military regimes which notoriously ruled by fiat edicts calculated to suppress reason and dissenting voices and above all kill excellence. The army uniform confers on the wearer the feeling that he is more valuable than the rest who are excluded from the club.
With exclusionary clauses appended to most of our otherwise modern and universal activities, and in our thinking, we, unfortunately, demonstrate our affection for the traditional, oppositionary categories even when our times and cultural idioms have changed. In so doing we reveal our inability to expand our moral imaginations and to really make room for excellence and democratic spirit.
At this stage of our history, we need excellence from any part of the world as long as it bears even the remotest hint or link to Nigeria. Wole Soyinka stands among other things, for global world outlook. Any prize bearing his name must entertain no exclusionary clause or measure.

Nigeria police hold 'robber' goat

Have you laughed yet today? Or at least grinned? Oh, dear, I did all of the above after reading the report in Nigeria that a car thief took shapes of different animals in order to carry out his nefarious duty. A Nigerian vigilante group arrested a goat for planning to steal a car! How does that sound? Shape shifter not in fiction, but in raw factual reality, or at least, what is supposed to be factual reality.

I am taken back to my days growing up in my village, Orji, near Enugu, hearing and believing such tales. I used to believe, as did my parents, that human beings could take the shapes of animals. Some powerful juju man could transform you into a snake, a goat or a fly. This is however a fraction of the larger mythological world that strongly shapes the average African mind. It is the belief that magic controls African existence as much as the "pursuit of of happiness" does the average American. This is further exacerbated by the the spread of the message of miraculous healing among different Christian denominations, including Western educated priests, who rather than enlighten people, claim to possess the power to counter the evil of juju doctors. That, of course, implies granting the existence of these magical powers.

A number of people have been lynched for allegedly stealing some other person's vital parts such as scrotum, by mere looking at the potential victim.

I am not subscribing to what some eighteenth century philosophers said about Africans: being prelogical, prescientific, but given the abundance of such instances, I am often tempted to rethink this assertion. Or at least to believe that African intellectuals have not yet undertaken as much effort as the European Enlightenment thinkers such as Immanuel Kant did, to encourage Africans to embrace critical, scientific thinking. I heard sometime ago that a certain South African leader believed that you could avoid contracting AIDS if you took a quick shower shortly after having sex with a potentially HIV positive person. Good luck, bro.
This is of course, no longer funny when such persons occupy policy-making positions. Not funny indeed.

By the way this is the LINK to the original news. Enjoy.

Zimbabwe Is Dying

The well-regarded African-American New York Times columnist, Bob Herbert, declares in his opinion column that Zimbabwe is dying. He goes on to discuss what many of us who have either been in that country or have friends there, have always known for a long time. Zimbabwe is dead and the murderer is no other than Mugabe. Dambudzo Marechera, obeying his poetic/prophetic instincts, noted this as far back as in 1978 in his novella, House of Hunger. Yvonne Vera did the same in her Stone Virgins. Yet Mugabe has always succeeded in fending of any criticism of his dictatorship and total lack of care by attacking the West and colonialism and imperialism and globalization and, what else?
When shall we put Mugabe on trial? And with him everything that he represents. And, hell, he represents a lot. Indeed, he stands for all that has gone wrong in African governance. He stands for the old guards of African liberation movement whose logical or discourse trump cards have always been to attack the West and, in doing so, remind the West of its guilt on the one hand, and, on the other, bring new generations of African thinkers and leaders to silence, for they dare not criticize those who are criticizing the West. This abysmal form of self-deceit has been going on in the African discourse for quite a long time. I dare say that it is the one most powerful cause of African moral and political decadence.
By the way here is the LINK to Bob Herbert's essay. Enjoy.

Senegal's Fashion Victims

Sorry, friends. I forgot to share this one with you. I remember growing up in and around Enugu in the early eighties and wondering, with others, why some otherwise glowingly dark-skinned people suddenly became as yellow as ripe bananas. We came to know that, in spite of the vaunted black pride slogans, many Africans fell victim to abysmal forms of self-loathing, or race-loathing as was exemplified in their flight from their skin color. Many of my friends did. I, too, tried a skin-bleaching soap if only to see what it would do. I discarded it nearly as promptly as I began to try it. It wasn't because I had some extra love of my dark color; it was just uncomfortable. At some point it was like rubbing pepper on your skin. I totally understand (though I do not wholly agree with) a person undertaking something to comply with the beauty standard of the time. I don't however understand why people would inflict lasting pains to themselves in order to appear beautiful, as this story shows. I try as much as possible to put myself in the position of women who go this length. Perhaps if I were a woman, constantly under the fierce gaze of society and men, wanting me to comply with their often undefined and undefinable standards and demands, I might succumb to that undefined and undefinable temptation.

Why great Igbo family businesses fail

Just read an interesting essay by Pat Utomi on why Igbo businesses tend to fail. I thought this was a successful, largely thought-provoking essay. It is successful in many ways especially given that it could be seen as a prologue to Igbo discourse or philosophy as some might choose to call it. Any people that wishes to thrive must understand itself and never veer from the continuous search for self-understanding.
Thanks, Pat.
Here's the essay. Enjoy!

Nigeria bikers' vegetable helmets

This one is good. Just laugh it off lest you be weighed down by inanities and banalities.
Good luck.

Ghana, beacon of hope in Africa

This is really good news. The opposition party in Ghana has just won a tightly contested general election. I really feel like wanting to be a Ghanaian. In short, I am Ghanaian. Forget that that I was born and bred in Nigeria. Call me Chielozona Akufo.
Well, read more of this from the BBC news. Enjoy!

New Works in African Literature

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's short story, A Private Experience explores the fate of two women caught up in one of the many Nigeria's ethnic and religious crisis.
It's becoming a pattern in Adichie's works that most of her Igbo characters are necessarily sophisticated, educated and have connections to Europe or America. This collection of short stories from which this one was taken will be published in April this year. I look forward to it.